[ chuck/casey ] [ Christmases and Home Cooking (4b/4)] [END]
[ Fandom | Chuck ]
[ Characters | Chuck / Casey ]
[ Giftee | skyesurfer12 ]
[ Rating | NC-17. PG-13 this Chapter ]
[ Word Count | 12.1k - This part (7.5k) ]
[ Warnings | AU (Chuck and Casey used to be neighbours as kids), Language, Pre-season 5, Unbeta'd ]
[ Summary | Team Bartowski trudge through missions until General Beckman has other plans which leaves them a week to spend Christmas with family and friends. Leaving them plenty of time to reminisce about days of old and of days to come. ]
[ Author's Note | Second Parter of the Last Part. ]
[ Disclaimer | If I were the owner of Chuck, there would have been more Casey and Chuck giving one another smouldering gazes. So nada, I just play in this sandbox. ]
[ Chapters | Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4a ● Part 4b [END] ]
[A few months back]
James Coburn could admit that working at the Federal Bureau of Investigation was rather gloomy and disheartening. The offices were practically the breeding ground for schizophrenics with the ever present looming clouds of depression. And that was all on a good day. Even his rather short time as part of the marines couldn’t desensitize him from all the dismembered bodies and bizarre hate crimes that was his job to solve and take down the perp.
Naturally that meant the FBI kept its’ agents up at all sorts of rather ungodly hours and prevented anyone from a decent shag; anyone that wasn’t married and would rather sleep with someone that they didn’t spend hours upon hours working with anyway.
So he kept a dog instead.
A warm fuzzy that loved him unconditionally and on occasions wouldn’t mind starving a little when dinner wasn’t served on time and not be a complete bitch about it.
Not that he didn’t try having a relationship outside of his job - James did back in the first year he had joined just fresh out of the marines, bright-eyed and bushy tailed thinking he could change the world… yeah, that particular break up had been spectacular. He ended up picking the lesser of two evils; hence the Golden Retriever.
One of the - and quite possibly few - side perks of being an FBI agent was being stationed in downtown Los Angeles and close enough to visit Ma and his favourite (and only) niece on weekends. There had been a point in time when James had envisioned of becoming a spy, maybe joining up with the CIA or Interpol with all the fame and glory that was glorified by Ian Fleming but his loyalty to be close by when his family needed him changed his mind irrevocably.
It had come as a surprise to him when Ellie called and invited him to enjoy a cup of coffee with her and Alex. She was on maternity leave and James’ team had hit somewhat of a road block in their investigations. His team leader must have won the lottery for actually allowing them to take a day off. It was either that or someone was getting laid around the office and James didn’t particularly desire envisioning his boss anywhere near a bedroom. He let that thought go.
The Wednesday after the call found James running to the café situated in Santa Monica with Goldie trotting obediently by his heel (James hadn’t ever been particularly creative whenever it came to naming things. He even had a car that he named Greenie.) Ellie was already sitting outside with baby Clara and a bottle in hand. The sight tickled his proud uncle characteristics.
“Hello Ellie. It’s lovely to see you as always,” he smiled at the passing waitress who had helpfully set down a glass of water and a small dish for his dog, “Is this Clara? My, she’s beautiful. I still stand by the fact you should have called her Jamesette.”
“Jammy. I was not naming my daughter using Smurfs nomenclature. Devon over-reacted when I suggested Grunka,” Ellie spoke with a deadpan look on her face and handed him a menu. James chortled and watched Clara take an instant liking to the gold fuzzy thing that was staring intently back. “But it is wonderful to see you again. It’s been a bit of a nightmare with Clara in the early days. And you, mister, are a very hard man to get in touch with. Are they running you haggard?”
The pretty waitress came and took his order. He smiled charmingly up at her and watched the slight sashay in her hips as she retreated to the kitchen, turning around to watch his dog press her wet nose against Clara’s chubby baby fingers. “Just about; we’re chasing paper trails and lucky me got to take the day off and about time too. So is there any particular reason why you’re interested in renting the beach house?”
Ellie hummed evasively as she flicked her gaze upwards to meet James’ eyes, “I’ve been roped into helping organise a family get together and we’re keeping it a surprise from Chuck. It’s actually going to be a partial surprise for someone else too.”
“Someone else?” Before Ellie could answer his question, she looked away and smiled over his shoulder with a small wave.
“Hi, I’m so sorry I’m late. I was with Morgan before coming over. Have you told him yet?” Alex asked in one breath as she took the extra seat between them and juggled saying hello to Goldie and Clara. He blinked in confusion as he turned to look between Alex and Ellie, wondering what was going on.
Alex exchanged a look with Ellie, a secret conversation of lip quirks and meaningful blinks occurred between the two women. He never could understand how women could efficiently communicate like that. “Okay I guess not. Uncle Jammy, I don’t want you to freak out-”
“But…?”
There was a quick inhale of breath and yet another meaningful look shared between the two women.
“It’s Dad. He’s … alive and for Christmas we thought it would be nice to bring everyone together again. As a family again that is,” she paused and looked at him closely. James didn’t know quite how to respond and felt his insides turn cold as shock settled in. What did Alex mean by ‘Dad’; surely not his brother who hadn’t been part of the mortal plain in quite some time.
“Oh god, you’re freaking out. If this is what Uncle Jammy is going to be like, how do you think my Grandma would react? Help please, Ellie?” James wasn’t entirely sure how he felt being the litmus test for this particular bombshell, but it was difficult to think of his reactions to that when his mind was still running circles around his supposedly dead brother’s miraculous revival.
He felt Ellie’s hand settle over his somewhere in the far back recesses of his mind and her touch warm. “James? Take a deep breath in and then let it out for me, honey.” He inhaled with a slight shudder and felt his diaphragm deflate as he breathed out. The sudden cold rush throughout his body pulsed in random directions over his skin and he felt his vision go funny.
“Is there anything else that you’d like to add whilst I’m still in this state of shock? My dog is pregnant? Is Grandpa suddenly alive again also? What?” James was aiming for blasé as he slowly wrapped his mind around this rather fascinating conundrum. How on earth had his brother managed to cheat death and remain undiscovered for all these years?
“Well, it’s not our place to say,” Ellie spoke after a sip of her tea, “But you could say my little brother hasn’t been happier since meeting him again.” She slanted a sly look in James direction and he felt his spine go rigid.
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying and that they are involved with one another?” he drawled and stared at his shaking hands, not quite knowing which answer he preferred or if he would rather remain blissfully unaware. It did however go against his very nature as an investigator and deep down past the rather thick layer of surprise, James wanted to know.
“You could say that.”
“Oh. Well. I think you just broke my brain but in a good way. If you say he’s happy, then that’s all I needed to hear,” James laughed if a little bit high pitched. Suddenly the espresso he ordered wasn’t quite near strong enough to help soothe his muddled thoughts - although James knew all too well that life was far too precious to idle days away due to society’s insecurities.
“So you’ll let us rent the beach house and help us bring Grandma and Dad together again?” Alex asked hopefully with a charming grin that never failed on her favourite (and only) uncle. James had showered his niece with everything that she could have wanted but drew the line at getting her a pony as most four year old girls are want to own.
James let out an all suffering sigh and ruffled her hair. “There’s no need to rent it if it’s family. The house is free until New Years. Is that long enough?” Ideally, he was pretty sure his mother would have liked his brother to move in indefinitely with her for some period of time (probably forever if she could manage it; she was a Coburn with a stubborn streak three miles wider than any Coburn male).
“Perfect,” the women exclaimed with small devious grins and no large amount of relief. They settled back to idle the afternoon away with chatter and afternoon tea. James listened to them talk, a small smug smile on his face knowing that his hunches had been right all along. His brother wouldn’t be so easily killed in action.
Consequently when James hops onto the newly lacquered wooden deck on the first day of his holiday and spies an older man sitting at the dining table, James doesn’t freak out. In fact, he is so completely in control of his faculties that he manages to punch him across the face before the bastard knew any better.
The collective gasp is music to his ears, broken only when Goldie barks at them all with a wag of her tail.
“Hello brother dearest,” James says with a shark like grin and easily ignores the stormy looks sent in his direction. “How pleasant to meet your acquaintance again, Alex or whatever names you’ve used. I fancy calling you Florence. Has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?”
Before Casey could even twitch a muscle to retaliate, Chuck and Alex flowed in like water to stand defiantly between them. Cole and Awesome were quick to physically restrain the two brothers that were eyeing one another like alpha males.
Casey manages an ugly smile as he inclines his head at his younger brother. “James. Still as chubby as the last time I laid my eyes on you. Having trouble losing weight?” Casey growls out as he inches a toe closer, pausing only when Chuck plasters himself against a muscular wall (rather futilely and ineffective in the long run when his lover had twenty pounds and then some of muscle on you, with the know how to twist you into a human pretzel).
The FBI agent lets out his own menacing growl and folds his arms defensively across his chest. The stance is mimicked and steadily the snarling in the room grew louder until Gale breaks the stalemate with her hands on her hips and her own Coburn glare. There was no mistake where either of her sons inherited that expression from.
“Boys,” the lethal warning note in that one word had both her sons looking in her direction obediently as if they were children once more and not grown men. “We’re going to sit down, shut up and have a lovely lunch together. Now, help me with lunch before I make you wish I never gave birth to either of you.”
It was just like old times and being the ever mature one, Casey gave his younger brother a light (read: not very nicely) shove as they piled into the kitchen to do as they are told. James smirks smugly at the childish move and doesn’t stop when his mother gives him an exasperated look, when he pushes back.
Casey started it after all and if mother didn’t like that particular reasoning, he could always put the blame on Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
*
[The Year Before]
It was possibly the nicest thing that Casey had ever done for him - outside of the small rare grunts of approval that always made Chuck feel over the moon with joy. After all, John Casey was never nice. It was either programmed out of his system or only reared its ugly head when Casey had done something completely contrite that required ingratiating. Naturally, these incidents were rather erratic.
“Oh my god, where on earth did you get these tickets from? They were sold out seconds after release. Did you know people are selling their own grandmothers for these? Hell, grandmothers are selling themselves for these!” Casey continued to eat his packed sandwich in content, ignoring the long litany of ohmygodohmyGOD spilling from Chuck’s lips as the tickets to San Diego Comic-Con sit innocently on the table between them.
“Best boyfriend EVER,” Chuck declared affectionately and did a full body wriggle in glee. Gifts from Casey were hard to come by like a drop of water in a desert, especially those that weren’t practical or downright bizarre.
This was all like a dream come true. The table that sat between them was probably the only thing stopping the nerd from flinging himself at Casey and doing rather dubious things to him in the middle of their lunch break. This, Casey reflected, may or may not have been a good thing. He glowered at their nosey workers with renewed menace in his eyes for good measure.
It was also probably only a tiny bit cruel for not telling his lover dearest that this was a government sanctioned op right then during lunch - not until absolutely necessary anyway (read: 20 minutes before their flight in 3 hours) - just long enough to savour the geeky bliss on Chuck’s face as if all his Christmases, Birthdays and Hanukkah’s had come all at once.
It was also probably worth the days of nerd talk he would have to withstand before and after and then the inbetween. (Casey deep, deep down was a Trekkie and a recently Firefly fan. But he’d never admit that to anyone, not even Chuck who would probably never let him live it down).
“Oh hell, what are we going to wear?”
Yes, the geek speak might be only barely tolerable. That is until Casey entertained the idea of accidentally choking his boyfriend because of his flapping hands and general ridiculous giddiness.
“No space penis costume or I will end you,” Casey added as he folded his lunch bag into quarters, discounting Chuck’s protests. He knew full well that was a two man costume and no amount of good quality Scotch or subscriptions to Guns and Ammo or hanky panky would even sway him in considering that get up. It brought up questions of why Morgan and Chuck couldn’t be normal fans and use curtains as Jedi robes and broomstick handles as lightsabers.
Heh right, the ‘normal’ part of that sentence.
Chuck fastidiously followed Casey around the Buy More like a puppy, brainstorming various characters they could dress as and go as a collective pair. Most of them were immediately shot down mercilessly. (“Hey hey, what about a Stormtrooper? You have the physique for it, big guy… Okay, okay. No need to growl. It was a compliment, jeez… How about we get you a brown coat and you could dress up as the Doctor? … C-Casey? Where are you going! I could be the Spock to your Kirk!”)
Finding out about the mission didn’t seem to interfere with Chuck’s enthusiasm for going to the convention. In fact, Casey was certain nothing could faze that short of an apocalypse of massive proportions.
Casey ended up not dressing up at all because it would just go against all his training as an NSA badass although he had been nearly swayed when Chuck had suggested Jayne Cobbe. As Jayne, Casey wouldn’t even need to conceal his weapons if he could tote around ‘plastic replicas’.
It boggled his mind how a government sanctioned op for Team Bartowski ended up becoming an excursion for all the Buy Morons. How Jeff and Lester had gotten tickets in the first place was another astonishing feat and Casey was sure it had to do with the Nerd Black Market. (He decided to not linger on that particular thought because his sanity could only deal with so much geek and a large portion of his coping mechanisms for the nerdiness already went into the day to day of living with Chuck).
It was a good thing Walker was a more than adequate distraction that Casey was able to do his damn job, taking down the mark with minimal fuss after Chuck’s flash. Her enthusiasm for the convention waned after two hours of moron-sitting and she begged off going for a circuit of the convention to take care of their mark. This left Casey at the mercy of his boyfriend, being dragged to each and every stall where he watched the younger man spent all his hard earned mission money like water.
Casey drew the line at helping Chuck carry his purchases, after eyeing the amount of stuff he had acquired. If Chuck complained about how his toothpick-like arms were going to ache come morning, they all fell on deaf ears and if somehow there was a shirt or two in his size that Chuck didn’t purchase, Casey would deny everything.
*
Lunch was a little bit of an awkward affair. James kept casting looks at his older brother, who met them with no hesitation, and a stony staring contest would ensue. The dining room felt more like the dungeon of a castle in the middle of winter with no sight of spring on the horizon.
The metaphorical war of wills was interrupted by Gale and Mary asking about how Sarah and Cole could be quite that adorable. Gradually the warmth crept and settled in, as a chain reaction of conversation was set off between how Clara was as cute as a button to Goldie’s diet and welfare. Then there was no chance for either of the Coburn brothers to dwell upon it any longer when the dog in question made herself known by thrusting her head under Casey’s large hand for pats and food.
“What a terror she was. After Alex’s pony phase, she demanded that she wanted to become a fire fighter and it was of utmost importance that she required a fire truck the following year. I distinctly remembering that summer being hosed down on more than two occasions because I was apparently on fire and ‘required assistance’. I think ma still has the tapes of that particular birthday party,” James recounts with a grin as Alex blushed to the roots of her hair and everyone laughed good naturedly.
The afternoon seemed to melt away the hostility between the brothers, enough so that Goldie didn’t get confused every time either of them decided to growl.
Gale and Mary shooed everyone out of the house, smiling at all the offers of help with the washing up. The sinks were manned by Sarah and Cole, who offered their expertise when it came to scrubbing stubborn stains off plates. The open conversation flowed throughout the kitchen as was the laughter when it came to Cole’s exciting stories of spending his childhood being a pasty young thing enjoying the beach bonfires and cooking on the beach.
Sarah was utterly enamoured with his world and his childhood, secretly wistful at the domesticity of the situation of being surrounded by friends and family. She had come to look on Chuck like the little brother she never had and the feeling of belonging was overwhelming.
“What’s a clam bake?” she asks when Awesome recalls a fond weekend spent on his own beach holiday as a child. Sarah wonders just how much she missed out when it came to normal family things, not that she didn’t enjoy her own. It was just different.
Mary made a surprised noise and after conferring with her partner in crime, the two older women began making amends to that particular travesty and delegating everyone tasks for dinner.
“That just won’t do love. We’re going to throw you the best clambake,” Gale added warmly, ignoring her weak protests citing that she didn’t want to be a bother. In fact, everyone were more than happy to spend the afternoon collecting kindling, setting out tables and chairs, digging holes, collecting clams and idling the afternoon away.
Casey spent his time hovering around his mother, happy to run any errands and bark out orders when things weren’t to his liking. The buckets of clams and fish were tossed into the bit, gradually grilled to perfection as the sun sat low in the sky.
Hours later with aching arms and bellies full, James and Casey sat side by side each with a beer in hand. They watched the fire crackle and dance. Each sat silent as sentinels with eyes peeled for any sign of danger like the good soldiers they were programmed to be.
It wouldn’t do to be caught unawares in a downtime like this despite the number of spies in the house greatly outnumbering the number of civilians. Anyone stupid enough to make a tactical decision in attacking would be hard pressed to clawing the Intersect or Frost from their claws.
Ellie and Devon had retired early to put Clara to bed and spend their night on the back deck sharing a bottle of wine with Gale and Mary. Apparently, they were still in the middle of catching up when Casey had last asked on his last trip to refill his beer.
Sarah, Cole, Morgan and Alex were splashing about in the water, laughing as they threw a beach ball between them with nothing but the light of the fire and the moon high in the sky to illuminate their play.
The only one unaccounted for was Chuck. James had lost track of him earlier but he figured his older brother was keeping rather detailed logs and tabs on his younger lover. From Casey’s lazy sprawl, Chuck wasn’t in any immediate danger.
Appearing like an apparition minutes later, Chuck returned having changed out of his jeans into a pair of shorts and held a guitar in hand. Making a quiet noise of command, Casey unfurled and Chuck snuggly fit himself between Casey’s legs like two puzzle pieces with a bright smile. He leant back against the broad expanse of chest and brightened when Casey settled his chin on one bony shoulder, snaking a warm possessive arm around Chuck’s middle.
Every so often, Casey would dip his nose into Chuck’s curls with whispered pointers pressed against his nape as Chuck played counterpoint to the rush of waves crashing against the shore on his guitar. James wondered if they realised how they only seemed to exist in their two man world as he runs his fingers through Goldie’s warm ruff.
It still didn’t quite compute that his brother and Chuck were together in that way and before James’ brain could shut his big mouth, he blurted out, “How did you two end up finding each other again? We never did hear that story.” He feels his neck heat up when Casey sends him an annoyed look for ruining the moment, subsiding only when he receives a cheek rub from his lover.
“Or uh, you don’t have to tell me at all if it’s special or whatever.”
The younger man doesn’t appear to mind, giving James a bright smile as if he had been expecting someone to ask ever since lunch and the younger Coburn man had done him a huge favour in asking.
“It all began a year ago really, but it didn’t really fully manifest itself until a mission in Sicily.”
*
[The Year Before]
Sicily is a beautiful part of Italy with architecture and buildings bursting from the side of hills down to its long winding streets that chase one another on the island. By day, Palermo is a bustling city bursting with life and tourists eager to soak in the culture and the sun. By night, the island is embraced by a comfortable lazy aura as the warmth of the day gives way to the cooler nights and the locals return home to rest and recuperate for yet another busy day ahead.
The mission itself was supposed to be a quick in and out job that should not have taken Team Bartowski more than a week to finish. Subdue the member of Griffen, detain and question him, return him to Burbank if required: all in all a simple mission that didn’t require all the firepower Casey had been toting when it came down to protecting the Intersect inside Chuck’s head.
They had been on the chase ever since they first set foot on the island and had been lucky enough to avoid a hastily planned ambush. Chuck had been busy doing his thing whilst his handlers did their best to incapacitate and not kill (a point that Casey had been displeased with).
With the ensuing second round of gunfight brewing on the horizon, Casey had volunteered to go in guns blazing and ordered Sarah to keep Chuck’s curly head between his shoulders before he burst out onto the scene with a smirk. That had been more than twelve hours ago.
Sarah is in the hotel room, busy pawing over all the intel they had gathered and was speaking in quick fire Italian to someone over the phone that the Intersect couldn’t fully keep up. There is only so much Chuck can do before he becomes a liability even if his intentions of helping were all well and good. That particular threshold had been all of three hours ago and Sarah, in a fit of frustration, had banished Chuck to the balcony. She hangs up minutes later and places her hands on her hips as she scrutinizes the map laid out on the table, casting an eerie net of silence over the room.
The quiet offers him some solace and Chuck curls up into one of the comfortable wicker chairs, hoping the Intersect would provide him with something; anything that would assist in returning Casey to his side. He really should know better than to rely on the millions of encoded images that sits dormant in his mind.
Chuck tries spreading out his senses, hoping that it would engage some hidden aspect of the Intersect that allowed him to perform search and rescue ops with ease. If he tried hard enough, perhaps he could pry open the secrets of the city through sheer will alone and bully the location of his handler out of the city’s streets.
Alone with only his memories to taunt him, Chuck spends a sleepless night out on the balcony of a foreign country thinking the very worst. In the past few months, Chuck had come to enjoy the gruff man’s company as he had when he was a child and he was hesitant in a repeat performance of being separated from him again.
The time is idled away as he concentrates on the twinkling of lights above his head spread out over the horizon, wondering when and how he had started aching for the older man’s acceptance. Chuck runs a hasty hand through his hair and breathes in the clean sea air, closing his eyes briefly.
His late night vigil is predictably fruitless and Sarah has gone to bed hours ago, resting sufficiently to start the next day anew on their quest to find the NSA agent. Chuck refuses to close his eyes any longer than necessary and his thoughts become a jumbled mess in his head. If he could last 48 hours during one of the more intense Halo Tournaments, then he could do this.
The sun rises over the horizon lazily as Chuck is deep in thought, looking but not quite seeing the glowing orange orb as it rises and dispels the shadows of the night over the slumbering city. The cool morning breeze assaults his skin, breaking out in gooseflesh and Chuck acutely misses the man that radiates heat.
Casey had gotten a little bit better at accepting physical touch lately. Each time Chuck had so much as pressed a passing hand against the taut muscles, the older man hadn’t so much as flinched. In fact, he was certain Casey was doing his own fair share of passing touches and Chuck recalls cords of steel and light touches that always manages to travel between his hands up to his cheeks.
He secretly hopes Casey has chalked his blushing up as something completely ludicrous and nothing like attraction. It was embarrassing enough as it is.
Setting his legs on the floor, Chuck ignores the pins and needles in them as he walks quietly into the hotel room and shuts himself inside the bathroom for a morning shower. The warm water sluicing down his back offers little comfort and Chuck only manages to feel remotely awake when he splashes cold water on his face. There is little he can do to shake the tiredness from his eyes that he can see in his reflection.
Hastily scribbling a note to Sarah, Chuck slips out of the room with his phone and wallet. He is surprised Sarah had managed to sleep through his shower and the sound of the door opening and closing and he knows she must be as tired as he feels. (Chuck likes to believe that it was really because he was improving, but that seemed hardly likely when Casey could still kick his ass five ways from Sunday).
It wasn’t as if he was escaping or anything. Sarah could easily find him with the GPS tracker strapped to his wrist assuming nothing disastrous came to pass to him or his watch.
He walks for hours, unaffected by the sun and the heat upon his face or the blisters that are beginning to form on his feet. If there is one thing that he has come to accept about the Intersect, is that anything and everything could be a possible trigger and Chuck is vain enough to think that it would lead him to Casey.
The urge to stop becomes overwhelming and Chuck finally collapses into the comfortable embrace of a chair outside a café and the waiter brings him a glass of water with a smile.
Showing his gratefulness, Chuck slips a bill across the table and downs the contents of the glass in one long swallow. He feels his heart rate gradually slow down to a more normal staccato and Chuck watches as the locals mill about with ease. The Italian that flows around him is translated helpfully by the language package in the Intersect, filtering the native language into his own.
Nothing of importance is ever said outside of the mundane small talk and it seems unlikely that anyone would have encountered a large angry American with the tendency to communicate using only grunts and various animalistic noises. It had been a bit of a long shot anyway and Chuck tries not to feel too disappointed with his idea. He ends up ordering a sandwich and settles for waiting.
Sarah eventually tracks him down, looking absolutely livid even though he hasn’t moved from the café for an hour. Her hair is mussed and she must have only grabbed the closest firearm she could before bolting out the door when she discovered he was gone.
“What on earth were you thinking Chuck running off on your own? You could have died! What if I wasn’t close enough to get you?”
“But clearly I am not dead and I wrote a note explaining.”
“You wrote that you were going on a walk. It could have been an opportunity for someone to take you, Chuck. You are very important to me, not just as the asset but as a friend and with Casey still missing, the sole responsibility of looking out for you falls upon my shoulders. If anything were to happen to you, Casey would skin me alive and feed me every inch of it,” Sarah’s eyes flashed and she purses her lips as she sits down opposite him, still looking rather frazzled.
Chuck rolls his eyes at her and feeling her protectiveness was rather misplaced. He has been a big boy for nearly a decade and surely he had displayed some qualities (developing and faint as they may be) that would allow him to survive as a spy in the past few years. The Intersect upgrade was a huge help in the skills department at the very least.
“He wouldn’t do anything like that.” (The fact of the matter is Casey most certainly would). “Besides, we would have to find him first,” he states as he turned his attention back out onto the streets to avoid her gaze, frowning as he attempts to stare the lampposts into submission.
She lets out a disgruntled noise and fires another glare in his general direction, though the look softens considerably when she realises how miserable he looks. “I know you want to find him as soon as possible but you have to let me help you do that. I want to find Casey just as much as you do. How about we go back and see if we missed any clues.”
Chuck takes in a deep breath and nods, deciding his feet have had just enough rest to warrant another couple hours of walking aimlessly.
They spend the rest of the afternoon alternating between asking and conjuring elaborate excuses as to why they were looking for a two hundred and some pounds of angry American muscle (So far, Chuck had managed to imply Casey was his erstwhile husband on more than two occasions to rather sympathetic Italian ears. Despite this no one had seen or heard anything).
“This is harder than figuring out why QWOP exists to torment the world. Why can’t he have left a note?” Chuck yawns as they lean against a bridge to take a breather. There was a great many things about John Casey’s flowery make up that Chuck probably wouldn’t begin to fathom or understand. The lack of sleep from the night before was starting to catch up to him and he could find no reason to say no when Sarah suggested grabbing dinner.
They return afterwards to the hotel when Chuck nearly managed to face plant into his platter of cannoli and gelato. Sarah made sure he was okay by himself in the lift and placed strict orders for rest whilst she went out to check a few leads that she couldn’t have earlier (read: seduction imminent).
The hotel room is dark when he steps inside. Chuck feels the exhaustion in his toes and whilst the sound of a warm shower sounded amazing, Chuck couldn’t even manage to turn on the light as he made a beeline for his bed. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it in the direction of his suitcase; not caring particularly if it lands as long as the floor is still there in the morning.
After all, tomorrow is another day and by the end of it, Casey would hopefully be with them again.
About to peel off the covers on his bed, Chuck feels his spy senses tingle and he strains his eyes in the dark to make out a rather large lump on his bed. He feels his insides flare up in panic; the lump could be anything ranging from a bomb to a box of kittens or a member of the Mafia out with a personal vendetta against the Intersect.
Chuck backs away and flails around in his luggage for the tranq gun that had recently joined his armory. His hands feel clammy and the handle sticks unpleasantly against his skin as he edges closer to his bed to investigate.
The feel of someone’s hand sliding down his back startles Chuck into whirling around and squeezing the trigger in reflex. Oh god, there was more than one of them. Chuck is most certainly doomed to die in Sicily and never see the release of Halo 4. The thought is oddly depressing.
“Easy there, sport. Not gonna hurt ya,” a low murmur purrs against his ear and it is quite possibly the best sound that Chuck has ever had the pleasure of hearing.
Before he could possibly stop himself, Chuck flings himself against Casey and finds his arms snake firmly around his NSA handler on their own volition. The physical contact is entirely necessary, Chuck reasons to himself; affirming to himself that this wasn’t some half-cooked hallucination his brain managed to piece together because lately he’s been feeling things for the agent.
Relief floods his system when Casey growls and shoves a large hand against the side of his face to stop the younger man from nuzzling him.
“Off.”
Chuck makes a small noise of protest and extricates himself as Casey’s personal human vine. The older man stalks over to the switch and palms the lights on, flooding the room in a warm golden glow.
The bundle on his bed twitches and Chuck sends a questioning look at the agent who rolls a beefy shoulder in indifference as if to communicate that he found no problems with keeping the mark was there. Oh, was that your bed, kid? Too bad.
“What have we told you about bringing stray animals home?” Chuck grumbles when it became clear that Casey will remain vigilantly tight-lipped about everything. How bloody typical.
“This one’s alive. Beckman wouldn’t let me off him.”
“And was this before or after you were captured?” Chuck bounces onto the empty bed that was Casey’s and glares at the older man. It would have had more effect if Casey’s back wasn’t turned to him as he rifled through his duffel bag. He flops onto his back and settles into making himself right at home on Casey’s bed.
The sound of Casey dismantling his gun and taking out the gun oil followed startles Chuck out of his sleepy doze. “Didya miss me, princess? Thought I’d do you a favour and get the job done since you and blondie were making eyes at one another.”
Chuck makes a frustrated strangled noise as he scrubs at his eyes to maintain some modicum of awareness in his body. “Sarah and I are friends. You know, a concept that you clearly have no interest in. Sarah and I thought something terrible had happened to you. We’re a team and that means looking out for one another,” the declaration was met with a derisive grunt, but Chuck steams on as if Casey hadn’t made a sound.
“You know what, I’m sorry I thought we were friends and spent hours on foot looking for you in a city and trying not to think how to explain to Beckman about your corpse. I’m sorry for caring about one of my oldest friends even though he doesn’t seem to think so. I’m sorry for losing sleep over this. I don’t know why I even bother.”
He rolls over onto his side and bares his back to Casey, intent on at least getting some rest now. Tired and cranky wasn’t a particular state of being he liked being in. The unfamiliar flicker of ire leaves his entire body tense and it is a little bit more difficult relaxing than he had initially expected.
What Chuck didn’t expect next is the gentle feel of two large hands rolling him over onto his back closer to the middle of the mattress. Casey’s bulk makes the bed dip as the NSA agent sat down with his back against the headboard. He glares up into blue eyes like a petulant child with a stubborn set to his chin.
“Chuck. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Sniffing gracefully, Chuck does his best to ignore the warmth tingling on his arm where Casey had touched him.
“You took off to do this mission solo and you think Sarah and I would be happy about that? I know I used to get in the way, but please give me more credit than that. You taught me to always have someone watching my back,” Chuck ignores the exact origin of those words as it is still a particular sore topic and continues, “Why won’t you let us do that?”
Casey runs a hand over his face and grumbles something into his palm.
“If that was something like ‘Oh, it was faster this way’ or ‘Oh, it was better that you were out of the way because you’re useless’ or maybe a ‘Oh, teams aren’t my thing, so I can put myself in danger because I’m invincible.’ I am going to have to hurt you in a way that will most likely hurt me in return,” Chuck shifts on the mattress and absentmindedly traced nonsensical patterns on the sheets near Casey’s knee as he thought out his next speech with a frown on his face.
“That’s different. I chose this path.”
With a sigh, Chuck shakes his head and rests his forehead against Casey’s thigh. “Gotta say buddy, ever since the Intersect got sent to me, it’s been my life. Sure I didn’t get a choice in the matter but it opened up a whole window of opportunity that I wouldn’t ever had thought about if I just worked at the Nerd Herd all of my life.
“And it gave me the opportunity to know Sarah and also you came back.” His throat seizes up as his traitorous mind thinks how easy it could have be for Casey be ripped out of his life again. He closes his eyes to block out those scenarios only to open them again when he feels a large thumb brush over one of his cheekbones. Tears had fallen without Chuck realising and he blinks them back as much as possible.
“Chuck.”
“’S nothing. Something in my eye is all. Didn’t slept well last night… if at all.”
A large hand cups the back of his neck and Chuck’s eyes widens when he realises how close Casey was leaning in.
“I did this mission solo because I didn’t want you getting hurt.”
It takes Chuck a total of three seconds to process those words before his face flushes red. “O-Oh.” The grimace on Casey’s face suggests it had cost quite a lot for the NSA agent to admit that. Chuck bites his lower lip and wracks his brains for something more substantial to reply with.
But the way Casey’s thumb is swiping the skin on his nape is highly distracting and Chuck is having a little bit of trouble wrangling the scant few brain cells he had left into some semblance of higher order function to do just that.
It turns out he didn’t need to when Casey’s other hand comes to cup his face and a large thumb rests over Chuck’s lips.
“Chuck?”
He is utterly distracted, humming a sound as he opened his lips fractionally. His heart is racing a mile a minute and his brain is headed in the opposite direction. In fact he feels blissfully blank and can only blink in response. Chuck can only bite down on his bottom lip again to stop him from saying anything completely inane.
“If you keep doing that, I may take advantage. You’ve been sending mixed signals.”
“Mixed signals? What? What am I doing?”
“That biting on your lip thing.”
“Oh! Did you say something about taking advantage? Because if that’s the case then I may just chew on my lip for the rest of the night until you do?”
“Chuck. Shut up.”
“Make me.”
The smirk on Casey’s face is the last thing he sees before his eyelids slip closed and he feels the pressure of lips against his own. Challenge accepted.
Neither of the men paid much attention to the squirming from Chuck’s bed and they wouldn’t part till later when Sarah walks in on them with the world’s worst timing that makes Chuck flush red with embarrassment and Casey smirk smugly.
*
The passing of time is painted by the journey of the moon over the black backdrop of space and a canopy of stars. The bonfire burns brightly and eventually everyone has enough of the sand and water, trekking back to the house and pretending not to notice the way Casey has Chuck folded snugly in his arms or how Chuck has tucked his head underneath the older man’s chin as they contemplate nothing in particular.
James takes his leave after silently listening to the beginning of their story and whistles for his dog to follow suit. It wasn’t so much the beginning as the continuation of or perhaps the second act, he corrects himself.
Chuck is content with life. He is surprised at how easily it is to be swept up by the adventure of being a spy and what has now become of his family and friends. He wouldn’t trade this for anything.
Whatever the world had to throw at them come morning, Chuck will have his friends and family by his side and many home cooked meals in the future to look forward to of the edible variety especially if Casey has any say in the matter.
Ending Notes My utmost apologies if the quality of this chapter is frankly suffering. I'm not entirely sure how satisfied I am with it (if I ever will be). But it is a few months late and I figured I ought to post this up before I lose the nerve (and more time) - so here it is! Woo I can change the progress tag to complete!
Possibilities of edits later when I stop running circles around myself and figure out if they are too out of character or not or if I've repeated myself too much there. I was a bit flummoxed with reactions and then there was the ugly cycle of procrastination.
Finally, I hope the ending of Christmases and Home Cooking was satisfactory. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and reading. It means a lot to know that at least someone else out there has gone on this ride and has enjoyed it. I doubt it, but if anyone wants the pdf to this I can upload one.
There may possibly be a few more shorts for this verse in the future. :)
Word Count 43,662
Pages 119
PDF Available Gentium Book Basic | Calibri
[ Chapters | Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4a ● Part 4b [END] ]
[ Characters | Chuck / Casey ]
[ Giftee | skyesurfer12 ]
[ Rating | NC-17. PG-13 this Chapter ]
[ Word Count | 12.1k - This part (7.5k) ]
[ Warnings | AU (Chuck and Casey used to be neighbours as kids), Language, Pre-season 5, Unbeta'd ]
[ Summary | Team Bartowski trudge through missions until General Beckman has other plans which leaves them a week to spend Christmas with family and friends. Leaving them plenty of time to reminisce about days of old and of days to come. ]
[ Author's Note | Second Parter of the Last Part. ]
[ Disclaimer | If I were the owner of Chuck, there would have been more Casey and Chuck giving one another smouldering gazes. So nada, I just play in this sandbox. ]
[ Chapters | Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4a ● Part 4b [END] ]
[A few months back]
James Coburn could admit that working at the Federal Bureau of Investigation was rather gloomy and disheartening. The offices were practically the breeding ground for schizophrenics with the ever present looming clouds of depression. And that was all on a good day. Even his rather short time as part of the marines couldn’t desensitize him from all the dismembered bodies and bizarre hate crimes that was his job to solve and take down the perp.
Naturally that meant the FBI kept its’ agents up at all sorts of rather ungodly hours and prevented anyone from a decent shag; anyone that wasn’t married and would rather sleep with someone that they didn’t spend hours upon hours working with anyway.
So he kept a dog instead.
A warm fuzzy that loved him unconditionally and on occasions wouldn’t mind starving a little when dinner wasn’t served on time and not be a complete bitch about it.
Not that he didn’t try having a relationship outside of his job - James did back in the first year he had joined just fresh out of the marines, bright-eyed and bushy tailed thinking he could change the world… yeah, that particular break up had been spectacular. He ended up picking the lesser of two evils; hence the Golden Retriever.
One of the - and quite possibly few - side perks of being an FBI agent was being stationed in downtown Los Angeles and close enough to visit Ma and his favourite (and only) niece on weekends. There had been a point in time when James had envisioned of becoming a spy, maybe joining up with the CIA or Interpol with all the fame and glory that was glorified by Ian Fleming but his loyalty to be close by when his family needed him changed his mind irrevocably.
It had come as a surprise to him when Ellie called and invited him to enjoy a cup of coffee with her and Alex. She was on maternity leave and James’ team had hit somewhat of a road block in their investigations. His team leader must have won the lottery for actually allowing them to take a day off. It was either that or someone was getting laid around the office and James didn’t particularly desire envisioning his boss anywhere near a bedroom. He let that thought go.
The Wednesday after the call found James running to the café situated in Santa Monica with Goldie trotting obediently by his heel (James hadn’t ever been particularly creative whenever it came to naming things. He even had a car that he named Greenie.) Ellie was already sitting outside with baby Clara and a bottle in hand. The sight tickled his proud uncle characteristics.
“Hello Ellie. It’s lovely to see you as always,” he smiled at the passing waitress who had helpfully set down a glass of water and a small dish for his dog, “Is this Clara? My, she’s beautiful. I still stand by the fact you should have called her Jamesette.”
“Jammy. I was not naming my daughter using Smurfs nomenclature. Devon over-reacted when I suggested Grunka,” Ellie spoke with a deadpan look on her face and handed him a menu. James chortled and watched Clara take an instant liking to the gold fuzzy thing that was staring intently back. “But it is wonderful to see you again. It’s been a bit of a nightmare with Clara in the early days. And you, mister, are a very hard man to get in touch with. Are they running you haggard?”
The pretty waitress came and took his order. He smiled charmingly up at her and watched the slight sashay in her hips as she retreated to the kitchen, turning around to watch his dog press her wet nose against Clara’s chubby baby fingers. “Just about; we’re chasing paper trails and lucky me got to take the day off and about time too. So is there any particular reason why you’re interested in renting the beach house?”
Ellie hummed evasively as she flicked her gaze upwards to meet James’ eyes, “I’ve been roped into helping organise a family get together and we’re keeping it a surprise from Chuck. It’s actually going to be a partial surprise for someone else too.”
“Someone else?” Before Ellie could answer his question, she looked away and smiled over his shoulder with a small wave.
“Hi, I’m so sorry I’m late. I was with Morgan before coming over. Have you told him yet?” Alex asked in one breath as she took the extra seat between them and juggled saying hello to Goldie and Clara. He blinked in confusion as he turned to look between Alex and Ellie, wondering what was going on.
Alex exchanged a look with Ellie, a secret conversation of lip quirks and meaningful blinks occurred between the two women. He never could understand how women could efficiently communicate like that. “Okay I guess not. Uncle Jammy, I don’t want you to freak out-”
“But…?”
There was a quick inhale of breath and yet another meaningful look shared between the two women.
“It’s Dad. He’s … alive and for Christmas we thought it would be nice to bring everyone together again. As a family again that is,” she paused and looked at him closely. James didn’t know quite how to respond and felt his insides turn cold as shock settled in. What did Alex mean by ‘Dad’; surely not his brother who hadn’t been part of the mortal plain in quite some time.
“Oh god, you’re freaking out. If this is what Uncle Jammy is going to be like, how do you think my Grandma would react? Help please, Ellie?” James wasn’t entirely sure how he felt being the litmus test for this particular bombshell, but it was difficult to think of his reactions to that when his mind was still running circles around his supposedly dead brother’s miraculous revival.
He felt Ellie’s hand settle over his somewhere in the far back recesses of his mind and her touch warm. “James? Take a deep breath in and then let it out for me, honey.” He inhaled with a slight shudder and felt his diaphragm deflate as he breathed out. The sudden cold rush throughout his body pulsed in random directions over his skin and he felt his vision go funny.
“Is there anything else that you’d like to add whilst I’m still in this state of shock? My dog is pregnant? Is Grandpa suddenly alive again also? What?” James was aiming for blasé as he slowly wrapped his mind around this rather fascinating conundrum. How on earth had his brother managed to cheat death and remain undiscovered for all these years?
“Well, it’s not our place to say,” Ellie spoke after a sip of her tea, “But you could say my little brother hasn’t been happier since meeting him again.” She slanted a sly look in James direction and he felt his spine go rigid.
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying and that they are involved with one another?” he drawled and stared at his shaking hands, not quite knowing which answer he preferred or if he would rather remain blissfully unaware. It did however go against his very nature as an investigator and deep down past the rather thick layer of surprise, James wanted to know.
“You could say that.”
“Oh. Well. I think you just broke my brain but in a good way. If you say he’s happy, then that’s all I needed to hear,” James laughed if a little bit high pitched. Suddenly the espresso he ordered wasn’t quite near strong enough to help soothe his muddled thoughts - although James knew all too well that life was far too precious to idle days away due to society’s insecurities.
“So you’ll let us rent the beach house and help us bring Grandma and Dad together again?” Alex asked hopefully with a charming grin that never failed on her favourite (and only) uncle. James had showered his niece with everything that she could have wanted but drew the line at getting her a pony as most four year old girls are want to own.
James let out an all suffering sigh and ruffled her hair. “There’s no need to rent it if it’s family. The house is free until New Years. Is that long enough?” Ideally, he was pretty sure his mother would have liked his brother to move in indefinitely with her for some period of time (probably forever if she could manage it; she was a Coburn with a stubborn streak three miles wider than any Coburn male).
“Perfect,” the women exclaimed with small devious grins and no large amount of relief. They settled back to idle the afternoon away with chatter and afternoon tea. James listened to them talk, a small smug smile on his face knowing that his hunches had been right all along. His brother wouldn’t be so easily killed in action.
Consequently when James hops onto the newly lacquered wooden deck on the first day of his holiday and spies an older man sitting at the dining table, James doesn’t freak out. In fact, he is so completely in control of his faculties that he manages to punch him across the face before the bastard knew any better.
The collective gasp is music to his ears, broken only when Goldie barks at them all with a wag of her tail.
“Hello brother dearest,” James says with a shark like grin and easily ignores the stormy looks sent in his direction. “How pleasant to meet your acquaintance again, Alex or whatever names you’ve used. I fancy calling you Florence. Has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?”
Before Casey could even twitch a muscle to retaliate, Chuck and Alex flowed in like water to stand defiantly between them. Cole and Awesome were quick to physically restrain the two brothers that were eyeing one another like alpha males.
Casey manages an ugly smile as he inclines his head at his younger brother. “James. Still as chubby as the last time I laid my eyes on you. Having trouble losing weight?” Casey growls out as he inches a toe closer, pausing only when Chuck plasters himself against a muscular wall (rather futilely and ineffective in the long run when his lover had twenty pounds and then some of muscle on you, with the know how to twist you into a human pretzel).
The FBI agent lets out his own menacing growl and folds his arms defensively across his chest. The stance is mimicked and steadily the snarling in the room grew louder until Gale breaks the stalemate with her hands on her hips and her own Coburn glare. There was no mistake where either of her sons inherited that expression from.
“Boys,” the lethal warning note in that one word had both her sons looking in her direction obediently as if they were children once more and not grown men. “We’re going to sit down, shut up and have a lovely lunch together. Now, help me with lunch before I make you wish I never gave birth to either of you.”
It was just like old times and being the ever mature one, Casey gave his younger brother a light (read: not very nicely) shove as they piled into the kitchen to do as they are told. James smirks smugly at the childish move and doesn’t stop when his mother gives him an exasperated look, when he pushes back.
Casey started it after all and if mother didn’t like that particular reasoning, he could always put the blame on Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
*
[The Year Before]
It was possibly the nicest thing that Casey had ever done for him - outside of the small rare grunts of approval that always made Chuck feel over the moon with joy. After all, John Casey was never nice. It was either programmed out of his system or only reared its ugly head when Casey had done something completely contrite that required ingratiating. Naturally, these incidents were rather erratic.
“Oh my god, where on earth did you get these tickets from? They were sold out seconds after release. Did you know people are selling their own grandmothers for these? Hell, grandmothers are selling themselves for these!” Casey continued to eat his packed sandwich in content, ignoring the long litany of ohmygodohmyGOD spilling from Chuck’s lips as the tickets to San Diego Comic-Con sit innocently on the table between them.
“Best boyfriend EVER,” Chuck declared affectionately and did a full body wriggle in glee. Gifts from Casey were hard to come by like a drop of water in a desert, especially those that weren’t practical or downright bizarre.
This was all like a dream come true. The table that sat between them was probably the only thing stopping the nerd from flinging himself at Casey and doing rather dubious things to him in the middle of their lunch break. This, Casey reflected, may or may not have been a good thing. He glowered at their nosey workers with renewed menace in his eyes for good measure.
It was also probably only a tiny bit cruel for not telling his lover dearest that this was a government sanctioned op right then during lunch - not until absolutely necessary anyway (read: 20 minutes before their flight in 3 hours) - just long enough to savour the geeky bliss on Chuck’s face as if all his Christmases, Birthdays and Hanukkah’s had come all at once.
It was also probably worth the days of nerd talk he would have to withstand before and after and then the inbetween. (Casey deep, deep down was a Trekkie and a recently Firefly fan. But he’d never admit that to anyone, not even Chuck who would probably never let him live it down).
“Oh hell, what are we going to wear?”
Yes, the geek speak might be only barely tolerable. That is until Casey entertained the idea of accidentally choking his boyfriend because of his flapping hands and general ridiculous giddiness.
“No space penis costume or I will end you,” Casey added as he folded his lunch bag into quarters, discounting Chuck’s protests. He knew full well that was a two man costume and no amount of good quality Scotch or subscriptions to Guns and Ammo or hanky panky would even sway him in considering that get up. It brought up questions of why Morgan and Chuck couldn’t be normal fans and use curtains as Jedi robes and broomstick handles as lightsabers.
Heh right, the ‘normal’ part of that sentence.
Chuck fastidiously followed Casey around the Buy More like a puppy, brainstorming various characters they could dress as and go as a collective pair. Most of them were immediately shot down mercilessly. (“Hey hey, what about a Stormtrooper? You have the physique for it, big guy… Okay, okay. No need to growl. It was a compliment, jeez… How about we get you a brown coat and you could dress up as the Doctor? … C-Casey? Where are you going! I could be the Spock to your Kirk!”)
Finding out about the mission didn’t seem to interfere with Chuck’s enthusiasm for going to the convention. In fact, Casey was certain nothing could faze that short of an apocalypse of massive proportions.
Casey ended up not dressing up at all because it would just go against all his training as an NSA badass although he had been nearly swayed when Chuck had suggested Jayne Cobbe. As Jayne, Casey wouldn’t even need to conceal his weapons if he could tote around ‘plastic replicas’.
It boggled his mind how a government sanctioned op for Team Bartowski ended up becoming an excursion for all the Buy Morons. How Jeff and Lester had gotten tickets in the first place was another astonishing feat and Casey was sure it had to do with the Nerd Black Market. (He decided to not linger on that particular thought because his sanity could only deal with so much geek and a large portion of his coping mechanisms for the nerdiness already went into the day to day of living with Chuck).
It was a good thing Walker was a more than adequate distraction that Casey was able to do his damn job, taking down the mark with minimal fuss after Chuck’s flash. Her enthusiasm for the convention waned after two hours of moron-sitting and she begged off going for a circuit of the convention to take care of their mark. This left Casey at the mercy of his boyfriend, being dragged to each and every stall where he watched the younger man spent all his hard earned mission money like water.
Casey drew the line at helping Chuck carry his purchases, after eyeing the amount of stuff he had acquired. If Chuck complained about how his toothpick-like arms were going to ache come morning, they all fell on deaf ears and if somehow there was a shirt or two in his size that Chuck didn’t purchase, Casey would deny everything.
*
Lunch was a little bit of an awkward affair. James kept casting looks at his older brother, who met them with no hesitation, and a stony staring contest would ensue. The dining room felt more like the dungeon of a castle in the middle of winter with no sight of spring on the horizon.
The metaphorical war of wills was interrupted by Gale and Mary asking about how Sarah and Cole could be quite that adorable. Gradually the warmth crept and settled in, as a chain reaction of conversation was set off between how Clara was as cute as a button to Goldie’s diet and welfare. Then there was no chance for either of the Coburn brothers to dwell upon it any longer when the dog in question made herself known by thrusting her head under Casey’s large hand for pats and food.
“What a terror she was. After Alex’s pony phase, she demanded that she wanted to become a fire fighter and it was of utmost importance that she required a fire truck the following year. I distinctly remembering that summer being hosed down on more than two occasions because I was apparently on fire and ‘required assistance’. I think ma still has the tapes of that particular birthday party,” James recounts with a grin as Alex blushed to the roots of her hair and everyone laughed good naturedly.
The afternoon seemed to melt away the hostility between the brothers, enough so that Goldie didn’t get confused every time either of them decided to growl.
Gale and Mary shooed everyone out of the house, smiling at all the offers of help with the washing up. The sinks were manned by Sarah and Cole, who offered their expertise when it came to scrubbing stubborn stains off plates. The open conversation flowed throughout the kitchen as was the laughter when it came to Cole’s exciting stories of spending his childhood being a pasty young thing enjoying the beach bonfires and cooking on the beach.
Sarah was utterly enamoured with his world and his childhood, secretly wistful at the domesticity of the situation of being surrounded by friends and family. She had come to look on Chuck like the little brother she never had and the feeling of belonging was overwhelming.
“What’s a clam bake?” she asks when Awesome recalls a fond weekend spent on his own beach holiday as a child. Sarah wonders just how much she missed out when it came to normal family things, not that she didn’t enjoy her own. It was just different.
Mary made a surprised noise and after conferring with her partner in crime, the two older women began making amends to that particular travesty and delegating everyone tasks for dinner.
“That just won’t do love. We’re going to throw you the best clambake,” Gale added warmly, ignoring her weak protests citing that she didn’t want to be a bother. In fact, everyone were more than happy to spend the afternoon collecting kindling, setting out tables and chairs, digging holes, collecting clams and idling the afternoon away.
Casey spent his time hovering around his mother, happy to run any errands and bark out orders when things weren’t to his liking. The buckets of clams and fish were tossed into the bit, gradually grilled to perfection as the sun sat low in the sky.
Hours later with aching arms and bellies full, James and Casey sat side by side each with a beer in hand. They watched the fire crackle and dance. Each sat silent as sentinels with eyes peeled for any sign of danger like the good soldiers they were programmed to be.
It wouldn’t do to be caught unawares in a downtime like this despite the number of spies in the house greatly outnumbering the number of civilians. Anyone stupid enough to make a tactical decision in attacking would be hard pressed to clawing the Intersect or Frost from their claws.
Ellie and Devon had retired early to put Clara to bed and spend their night on the back deck sharing a bottle of wine with Gale and Mary. Apparently, they were still in the middle of catching up when Casey had last asked on his last trip to refill his beer.
Sarah, Cole, Morgan and Alex were splashing about in the water, laughing as they threw a beach ball between them with nothing but the light of the fire and the moon high in the sky to illuminate their play.
The only one unaccounted for was Chuck. James had lost track of him earlier but he figured his older brother was keeping rather detailed logs and tabs on his younger lover. From Casey’s lazy sprawl, Chuck wasn’t in any immediate danger.
Appearing like an apparition minutes later, Chuck returned having changed out of his jeans into a pair of shorts and held a guitar in hand. Making a quiet noise of command, Casey unfurled and Chuck snuggly fit himself between Casey’s legs like two puzzle pieces with a bright smile. He leant back against the broad expanse of chest and brightened when Casey settled his chin on one bony shoulder, snaking a warm possessive arm around Chuck’s middle.
Every so often, Casey would dip his nose into Chuck’s curls with whispered pointers pressed against his nape as Chuck played counterpoint to the rush of waves crashing against the shore on his guitar. James wondered if they realised how they only seemed to exist in their two man world as he runs his fingers through Goldie’s warm ruff.
It still didn’t quite compute that his brother and Chuck were together in that way and before James’ brain could shut his big mouth, he blurted out, “How did you two end up finding each other again? We never did hear that story.” He feels his neck heat up when Casey sends him an annoyed look for ruining the moment, subsiding only when he receives a cheek rub from his lover.
“Or uh, you don’t have to tell me at all if it’s special or whatever.”
The younger man doesn’t appear to mind, giving James a bright smile as if he had been expecting someone to ask ever since lunch and the younger Coburn man had done him a huge favour in asking.
“It all began a year ago really, but it didn’t really fully manifest itself until a mission in Sicily.”
*
[The Year Before]
Sicily is a beautiful part of Italy with architecture and buildings bursting from the side of hills down to its long winding streets that chase one another on the island. By day, Palermo is a bustling city bursting with life and tourists eager to soak in the culture and the sun. By night, the island is embraced by a comfortable lazy aura as the warmth of the day gives way to the cooler nights and the locals return home to rest and recuperate for yet another busy day ahead.
The mission itself was supposed to be a quick in and out job that should not have taken Team Bartowski more than a week to finish. Subdue the member of Griffen, detain and question him, return him to Burbank if required: all in all a simple mission that didn’t require all the firepower Casey had been toting when it came down to protecting the Intersect inside Chuck’s head.
They had been on the chase ever since they first set foot on the island and had been lucky enough to avoid a hastily planned ambush. Chuck had been busy doing his thing whilst his handlers did their best to incapacitate and not kill (a point that Casey had been displeased with).
With the ensuing second round of gunfight brewing on the horizon, Casey had volunteered to go in guns blazing and ordered Sarah to keep Chuck’s curly head between his shoulders before he burst out onto the scene with a smirk. That had been more than twelve hours ago.
Sarah is in the hotel room, busy pawing over all the intel they had gathered and was speaking in quick fire Italian to someone over the phone that the Intersect couldn’t fully keep up. There is only so much Chuck can do before he becomes a liability even if his intentions of helping were all well and good. That particular threshold had been all of three hours ago and Sarah, in a fit of frustration, had banished Chuck to the balcony. She hangs up minutes later and places her hands on her hips as she scrutinizes the map laid out on the table, casting an eerie net of silence over the room.
The quiet offers him some solace and Chuck curls up into one of the comfortable wicker chairs, hoping the Intersect would provide him with something; anything that would assist in returning Casey to his side. He really should know better than to rely on the millions of encoded images that sits dormant in his mind.
Chuck tries spreading out his senses, hoping that it would engage some hidden aspect of the Intersect that allowed him to perform search and rescue ops with ease. If he tried hard enough, perhaps he could pry open the secrets of the city through sheer will alone and bully the location of his handler out of the city’s streets.
Alone with only his memories to taunt him, Chuck spends a sleepless night out on the balcony of a foreign country thinking the very worst. In the past few months, Chuck had come to enjoy the gruff man’s company as he had when he was a child and he was hesitant in a repeat performance of being separated from him again.
The time is idled away as he concentrates on the twinkling of lights above his head spread out over the horizon, wondering when and how he had started aching for the older man’s acceptance. Chuck runs a hasty hand through his hair and breathes in the clean sea air, closing his eyes briefly.
His late night vigil is predictably fruitless and Sarah has gone to bed hours ago, resting sufficiently to start the next day anew on their quest to find the NSA agent. Chuck refuses to close his eyes any longer than necessary and his thoughts become a jumbled mess in his head. If he could last 48 hours during one of the more intense Halo Tournaments, then he could do this.
The sun rises over the horizon lazily as Chuck is deep in thought, looking but not quite seeing the glowing orange orb as it rises and dispels the shadows of the night over the slumbering city. The cool morning breeze assaults his skin, breaking out in gooseflesh and Chuck acutely misses the man that radiates heat.
Casey had gotten a little bit better at accepting physical touch lately. Each time Chuck had so much as pressed a passing hand against the taut muscles, the older man hadn’t so much as flinched. In fact, he was certain Casey was doing his own fair share of passing touches and Chuck recalls cords of steel and light touches that always manages to travel between his hands up to his cheeks.
He secretly hopes Casey has chalked his blushing up as something completely ludicrous and nothing like attraction. It was embarrassing enough as it is.
Setting his legs on the floor, Chuck ignores the pins and needles in them as he walks quietly into the hotel room and shuts himself inside the bathroom for a morning shower. The warm water sluicing down his back offers little comfort and Chuck only manages to feel remotely awake when he splashes cold water on his face. There is little he can do to shake the tiredness from his eyes that he can see in his reflection.
Hastily scribbling a note to Sarah, Chuck slips out of the room with his phone and wallet. He is surprised Sarah had managed to sleep through his shower and the sound of the door opening and closing and he knows she must be as tired as he feels. (Chuck likes to believe that it was really because he was improving, but that seemed hardly likely when Casey could still kick his ass five ways from Sunday).
It wasn’t as if he was escaping or anything. Sarah could easily find him with the GPS tracker strapped to his wrist assuming nothing disastrous came to pass to him or his watch.
He walks for hours, unaffected by the sun and the heat upon his face or the blisters that are beginning to form on his feet. If there is one thing that he has come to accept about the Intersect, is that anything and everything could be a possible trigger and Chuck is vain enough to think that it would lead him to Casey.
The urge to stop becomes overwhelming and Chuck finally collapses into the comfortable embrace of a chair outside a café and the waiter brings him a glass of water with a smile.
Showing his gratefulness, Chuck slips a bill across the table and downs the contents of the glass in one long swallow. He feels his heart rate gradually slow down to a more normal staccato and Chuck watches as the locals mill about with ease. The Italian that flows around him is translated helpfully by the language package in the Intersect, filtering the native language into his own.
Nothing of importance is ever said outside of the mundane small talk and it seems unlikely that anyone would have encountered a large angry American with the tendency to communicate using only grunts and various animalistic noises. It had been a bit of a long shot anyway and Chuck tries not to feel too disappointed with his idea. He ends up ordering a sandwich and settles for waiting.
Sarah eventually tracks him down, looking absolutely livid even though he hasn’t moved from the café for an hour. Her hair is mussed and she must have only grabbed the closest firearm she could before bolting out the door when she discovered he was gone.
“What on earth were you thinking Chuck running off on your own? You could have died! What if I wasn’t close enough to get you?”
“But clearly I am not dead and I wrote a note explaining.”
“You wrote that you were going on a walk. It could have been an opportunity for someone to take you, Chuck. You are very important to me, not just as the asset but as a friend and with Casey still missing, the sole responsibility of looking out for you falls upon my shoulders. If anything were to happen to you, Casey would skin me alive and feed me every inch of it,” Sarah’s eyes flashed and she purses her lips as she sits down opposite him, still looking rather frazzled.
Chuck rolls his eyes at her and feeling her protectiveness was rather misplaced. He has been a big boy for nearly a decade and surely he had displayed some qualities (developing and faint as they may be) that would allow him to survive as a spy in the past few years. The Intersect upgrade was a huge help in the skills department at the very least.
“He wouldn’t do anything like that.” (The fact of the matter is Casey most certainly would). “Besides, we would have to find him first,” he states as he turned his attention back out onto the streets to avoid her gaze, frowning as he attempts to stare the lampposts into submission.
She lets out a disgruntled noise and fires another glare in his general direction, though the look softens considerably when she realises how miserable he looks. “I know you want to find him as soon as possible but you have to let me help you do that. I want to find Casey just as much as you do. How about we go back and see if we missed any clues.”
Chuck takes in a deep breath and nods, deciding his feet have had just enough rest to warrant another couple hours of walking aimlessly.
They spend the rest of the afternoon alternating between asking and conjuring elaborate excuses as to why they were looking for a two hundred and some pounds of angry American muscle (So far, Chuck had managed to imply Casey was his erstwhile husband on more than two occasions to rather sympathetic Italian ears. Despite this no one had seen or heard anything).
“This is harder than figuring out why QWOP exists to torment the world. Why can’t he have left a note?” Chuck yawns as they lean against a bridge to take a breather. There was a great many things about John Casey’s flowery make up that Chuck probably wouldn’t begin to fathom or understand. The lack of sleep from the night before was starting to catch up to him and he could find no reason to say no when Sarah suggested grabbing dinner.
They return afterwards to the hotel when Chuck nearly managed to face plant into his platter of cannoli and gelato. Sarah made sure he was okay by himself in the lift and placed strict orders for rest whilst she went out to check a few leads that she couldn’t have earlier (read: seduction imminent).
The hotel room is dark when he steps inside. Chuck feels the exhaustion in his toes and whilst the sound of a warm shower sounded amazing, Chuck couldn’t even manage to turn on the light as he made a beeline for his bed. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it in the direction of his suitcase; not caring particularly if it lands as long as the floor is still there in the morning.
After all, tomorrow is another day and by the end of it, Casey would hopefully be with them again.
About to peel off the covers on his bed, Chuck feels his spy senses tingle and he strains his eyes in the dark to make out a rather large lump on his bed. He feels his insides flare up in panic; the lump could be anything ranging from a bomb to a box of kittens or a member of the Mafia out with a personal vendetta against the Intersect.
Chuck backs away and flails around in his luggage for the tranq gun that had recently joined his armory. His hands feel clammy and the handle sticks unpleasantly against his skin as he edges closer to his bed to investigate.
The feel of someone’s hand sliding down his back startles Chuck into whirling around and squeezing the trigger in reflex. Oh god, there was more than one of them. Chuck is most certainly doomed to die in Sicily and never see the release of Halo 4. The thought is oddly depressing.
“Easy there, sport. Not gonna hurt ya,” a low murmur purrs against his ear and it is quite possibly the best sound that Chuck has ever had the pleasure of hearing.
Before he could possibly stop himself, Chuck flings himself against Casey and finds his arms snake firmly around his NSA handler on their own volition. The physical contact is entirely necessary, Chuck reasons to himself; affirming to himself that this wasn’t some half-cooked hallucination his brain managed to piece together because lately he’s been feeling things for the agent.
Relief floods his system when Casey growls and shoves a large hand against the side of his face to stop the younger man from nuzzling him.
“Off.”
Chuck makes a small noise of protest and extricates himself as Casey’s personal human vine. The older man stalks over to the switch and palms the lights on, flooding the room in a warm golden glow.
The bundle on his bed twitches and Chuck sends a questioning look at the agent who rolls a beefy shoulder in indifference as if to communicate that he found no problems with keeping the mark was there. Oh, was that your bed, kid? Too bad.
“What have we told you about bringing stray animals home?” Chuck grumbles when it became clear that Casey will remain vigilantly tight-lipped about everything. How bloody typical.
“This one’s alive. Beckman wouldn’t let me off him.”
“And was this before or after you were captured?” Chuck bounces onto the empty bed that was Casey’s and glares at the older man. It would have had more effect if Casey’s back wasn’t turned to him as he rifled through his duffel bag. He flops onto his back and settles into making himself right at home on Casey’s bed.
The sound of Casey dismantling his gun and taking out the gun oil followed startles Chuck out of his sleepy doze. “Didya miss me, princess? Thought I’d do you a favour and get the job done since you and blondie were making eyes at one another.”
Chuck makes a frustrated strangled noise as he scrubs at his eyes to maintain some modicum of awareness in his body. “Sarah and I are friends. You know, a concept that you clearly have no interest in. Sarah and I thought something terrible had happened to you. We’re a team and that means looking out for one another,” the declaration was met with a derisive grunt, but Chuck steams on as if Casey hadn’t made a sound.
“You know what, I’m sorry I thought we were friends and spent hours on foot looking for you in a city and trying not to think how to explain to Beckman about your corpse. I’m sorry for caring about one of my oldest friends even though he doesn’t seem to think so. I’m sorry for losing sleep over this. I don’t know why I even bother.”
He rolls over onto his side and bares his back to Casey, intent on at least getting some rest now. Tired and cranky wasn’t a particular state of being he liked being in. The unfamiliar flicker of ire leaves his entire body tense and it is a little bit more difficult relaxing than he had initially expected.
What Chuck didn’t expect next is the gentle feel of two large hands rolling him over onto his back closer to the middle of the mattress. Casey’s bulk makes the bed dip as the NSA agent sat down with his back against the headboard. He glares up into blue eyes like a petulant child with a stubborn set to his chin.
“Chuck. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Sniffing gracefully, Chuck does his best to ignore the warmth tingling on his arm where Casey had touched him.
“You took off to do this mission solo and you think Sarah and I would be happy about that? I know I used to get in the way, but please give me more credit than that. You taught me to always have someone watching my back,” Chuck ignores the exact origin of those words as it is still a particular sore topic and continues, “Why won’t you let us do that?”
Casey runs a hand over his face and grumbles something into his palm.
“If that was something like ‘Oh, it was faster this way’ or ‘Oh, it was better that you were out of the way because you’re useless’ or maybe a ‘Oh, teams aren’t my thing, so I can put myself in danger because I’m invincible.’ I am going to have to hurt you in a way that will most likely hurt me in return,” Chuck shifts on the mattress and absentmindedly traced nonsensical patterns on the sheets near Casey’s knee as he thought out his next speech with a frown on his face.
“That’s different. I chose this path.”
With a sigh, Chuck shakes his head and rests his forehead against Casey’s thigh. “Gotta say buddy, ever since the Intersect got sent to me, it’s been my life. Sure I didn’t get a choice in the matter but it opened up a whole window of opportunity that I wouldn’t ever had thought about if I just worked at the Nerd Herd all of my life.
“And it gave me the opportunity to know Sarah and also you came back.” His throat seizes up as his traitorous mind thinks how easy it could have be for Casey be ripped out of his life again. He closes his eyes to block out those scenarios only to open them again when he feels a large thumb brush over one of his cheekbones. Tears had fallen without Chuck realising and he blinks them back as much as possible.
“Chuck.”
“’S nothing. Something in my eye is all. Didn’t slept well last night… if at all.”
A large hand cups the back of his neck and Chuck’s eyes widens when he realises how close Casey was leaning in.
“I did this mission solo because I didn’t want you getting hurt.”
It takes Chuck a total of three seconds to process those words before his face flushes red. “O-Oh.” The grimace on Casey’s face suggests it had cost quite a lot for the NSA agent to admit that. Chuck bites his lower lip and wracks his brains for something more substantial to reply with.
But the way Casey’s thumb is swiping the skin on his nape is highly distracting and Chuck is having a little bit of trouble wrangling the scant few brain cells he had left into some semblance of higher order function to do just that.
It turns out he didn’t need to when Casey’s other hand comes to cup his face and a large thumb rests over Chuck’s lips.
“Chuck?”
He is utterly distracted, humming a sound as he opened his lips fractionally. His heart is racing a mile a minute and his brain is headed in the opposite direction. In fact he feels blissfully blank and can only blink in response. Chuck can only bite down on his bottom lip again to stop him from saying anything completely inane.
“If you keep doing that, I may take advantage. You’ve been sending mixed signals.”
“Mixed signals? What? What am I doing?”
“That biting on your lip thing.”
“Oh! Did you say something about taking advantage? Because if that’s the case then I may just chew on my lip for the rest of the night until you do?”
“Chuck. Shut up.”
“Make me.”
The smirk on Casey’s face is the last thing he sees before his eyelids slip closed and he feels the pressure of lips against his own. Challenge accepted.
Neither of the men paid much attention to the squirming from Chuck’s bed and they wouldn’t part till later when Sarah walks in on them with the world’s worst timing that makes Chuck flush red with embarrassment and Casey smirk smugly.
*
The passing of time is painted by the journey of the moon over the black backdrop of space and a canopy of stars. The bonfire burns brightly and eventually everyone has enough of the sand and water, trekking back to the house and pretending not to notice the way Casey has Chuck folded snugly in his arms or how Chuck has tucked his head underneath the older man’s chin as they contemplate nothing in particular.
James takes his leave after silently listening to the beginning of their story and whistles for his dog to follow suit. It wasn’t so much the beginning as the continuation of or perhaps the second act, he corrects himself.
Chuck is content with life. He is surprised at how easily it is to be swept up by the adventure of being a spy and what has now become of his family and friends. He wouldn’t trade this for anything.
Whatever the world had to throw at them come morning, Chuck will have his friends and family by his side and many home cooked meals in the future to look forward to of the edible variety especially if Casey has any say in the matter.
Ending Notes My utmost apologies if the quality of this chapter is frankly suffering. I'm not entirely sure how satisfied I am with it (if I ever will be). But it is a few months late and I figured I ought to post this up before I lose the nerve (and more time) - so here it is! Woo I can change the progress tag to complete!
Possibilities of edits later when I stop running circles around myself and figure out if they are too out of character or not or if I've repeated myself too much there. I was a bit flummoxed with reactions and then there was the ugly cycle of procrastination.
Finally, I hope the ending of Christmases and Home Cooking was satisfactory. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and reading. It means a lot to know that at least someone else out there has gone on this ride and has enjoyed it. I doubt it, but if anyone wants the pdf to this I can upload one.
There may possibly be a few more shorts for this verse in the future. :)
Word Count 43,662
Pages 119
PDF Available Gentium Book Basic | Calibri
[ Chapters | Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4a ● Part 4b [END] ]